Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale
4 Stars

When her editor asks her to investigate a series of "elf" sightings, Corrine D’Alessandro immediately suspects that one of the "Others" is the culprit. She soon finds herself teaming up with Lucifer "Luc" Macanaw, Captain of the Fae Queen's guard, on the trail of a wayward fae whose careless actions may start an interdimensional war.

Warren finally seems to have found her groove with these expanded and re-released novellas. To begin with, the lackluster world-building of the previous installments is finally resolved with more explanations on the connection between the Fae and human worlds and the function of the Council of Others.

Luc and Corrine's romance is fun. They initially rub each other the wrong way, and their banter is snarky and entertaining. Their chemistry deepens as they work together and there is thankfully very little angst over Luc's secret -Corrine is his heart's mate. Warren handles this trope well as it is clear by the reveal that Luc and Corrine's feelings go beyond physical attraction.

The suspense plot focusing on the search for Queen Mab's reckless nephew is well-developed and the revelation of the villain is actually quite a surprise even though, in hindsight, there are sufficient clues. So, kudos to Warren for the twist

In sum, this is definitely the best in the series so far and begins to show the promise of the later books. Kate Reading's narration of the audiobook is excellent as she a broad vocal range for both the male and female characters. I will definitely be listening to the rest. ( )

Much better than the last book I tried where I ended up skim reading. I actually read all of this one. I had read a teaser in a previous book that I thought was for Ava, hopefully that is the next one planned in the series and finally the one previously teased in the back of a previous book. It looked really good! ( )

Quite frankly, I don't know why I finished this, it was so bad. I will never read another Christine Warren book again. The prose was was awkward -- not a smooth reading experience but that was not the worst. 50 percent of the book was made up of sex scenes. I don't mind a book with a few sex scenes, e.g., Nora Roberts, but here it takes the place of plot and characterization. I gave this book 1 1/2 stars instead of one because I did end up finishing it. About a third of the way through I was going to give up. Now I wish I had instead of wasting my reading time. I'm usually very careful about picking what I'm going to read. At least this was a library book and not one I purchased. ( )

I swear 90% of this book was exposition. ( )

This is a re-write of one of the original stories from Ellora's Cave. The hero and heroine of this story are Lucifer "Luc" Macanaw and Corinne D'Alessandro. I am thinking that I like the older stories more than the newer ones. The characters didn't take so long to get together in the originals. Anyway I like the story mostly because it gives the reader a glimpse into the Summer Court of Faerie. I liked Luc, as I have with most of the male characters, he is all alpha male and caring mate at once. I liked the twist in the plot about who the bad guys was and how everyone came together to catch the crazy Other. There is a enough humor to keep the story from dragging and enough suspense to keep it from being to draggy. The overall story is a good addition to the paranormal genre and fans should enjoy it. ( )